Letter 02.03.95

From ###@###.com Fri Feb 3 14:16:55 1995
From: "Luis F. ###"
Date: Fri, 03 Feb 95 17:11:27 -500
To: assmaster@fatass.com
Hello assmaster,
(portions deleted - ed.)
I read through your disclaimer, and found it to be as entertaining as the
rest of the page. Yes, I did notice the amount of possible-inner-jokes,
and I could not do anything but grin at your nicknames.
The INTERNET is getting a lot of exposure now that is becoming widely
available. A lot of servers are not carying any of the erotica or sex
newsgroups, and NNTPSERVERS that used to be open to the public are now
closing. This is really shitty, cuz one of the cool things about the INTERNET
is the lack of censorship that used to be just a few years ago. It's not so
much the sex issue, it's more of the principle of censorship. Any of these
days, someone could find about your page, and will pass it along to Justin,
at hotwired.com (have you seen his page? He has a pretty complete set of
decent links to basically everything). Then you'll be discovered, zillions of
people will connect, and you'll start getting hatemail. A lot of obscurantists
will forge their e-mail to make it look as if they were sending it from the
FBI or other places. Shit, I hate these people..
So what's your story? Did you guys create fatass as an inner joke? What do
you and your friends do? You look like a pretty cool bunch. Keep it up, this
world is running out of free spirits.
Take care,
Luis

Response from fatass.com

Dear friend of fatass.com,

Glad you liked the disclaimer. It was written with assistance from a promising intellectual
property attorney working at a prominent San Francisco law firm. No kidding-- it
can be handy to have old rugby buddies who are lawhawks.

As for potentially inciting the wrath of the Electronic Right, we don't particularly
care what they think. We don't even particularly care what we think. It is
precisely this lack of appreciation for the thoughts of others that has made this
nation the Greatest on the Earth (albeit, the most socially maladjusted).

Admittedly, fatass.com does cater to a select local
crowd of folks, the focus of our blatant inside jokes. Nevertheless, we select our
pages with care and concern (and, we daresay, maybe even a little Love?) for George
and Georgette Internet, hoping that anyone can catch a (possibly lowbrow) chuckle
from our friendly jests.

As for the porn (particularly, JP and
D-Nice's"Way Dirty Pix" page) our disclaimer
makes it clear where we stand. fatass.com does not offer a single pornographic image
which originated within our hallowed walls. Not that we have any ethical objection
to such activities-- there's just no point, with thousands of smut mongers dumping
images onto the net every year. Besides, most of them have better scanners than
we do.

As for feigned threats from the FBI, KGB, or even the Fox network, we sigh and shake
our collective head. If someone can present sound, convincing reasons for us to
censor ourselves (when case law has proven that the government isn't interested
in what fatass.com and thousands of others are currently doing) we will. We haven't
seen any such convincing arguments to date, and it's unlikely that Mrs. Billy Joe
Bob from the Bible Belt will frighten us with letters signed "Bill Clinton". However,
we might hesitate if we get something from J. Edgar Hoover...

Our stance is clear. There is a monstrous body of material on the Internet which
children shouldn't be looking at or reading. Then again, Dad probably has a monstrous
collection of Playboy magazines underneath his garage workbench which kids shouldn't
be looking at either. And HBO? USA's made-for-TV movies? The Power Rangers? C'mon...
If fatass.com had kids (sadly incapable, as are most Internet domains), it wouldn't
let them surf the net unattended. Stick with AOL or Prodigy or Compuserve, which
have rational censorship measures in place. And they have considerably more truly
educational stuff for kids to be looking at than the Net-At-Large, anyway.

As for the possibility of offending adults-- well, that's silly. Man has
had the privilege of self-determination since Aristotle (or was that Voltaire?)
and can exercise it simply enough-- stay the hell away from fatass.com. There's
nothing offensive on the home page, and don't link beyond it.